OK Slip Falls access nears in Adirondacks land sale

State land purchase clears public access to storied waterfall

Updated 10:21 pm, Tuesday, April 23, 2013

New York state finalized the purchase Tuesday of 9,300 acres of former Finch Pruyn land in the Adirondacks.

The deal includes the tract that contains OK Slip Falls, the Adirondacks' highest waterfall.

The spot has remained inaccessible and unknown to most New Yorkers as privately held forest land.

Closing on the 9,300 acres marks one of several benchmarks in a 69,000-acre acquisition of forest lands formerly held by the paper company.

Purchasing the land by the state will eventually allow the public to use the acreage for hiking, rafting and other recreation. Among the few people who have seen the OK Slip Falls were timber company employees and visitors to a privately run summer camp that leased the property.

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The timberlands were originally purchased by The Nature Conservancy with the understanding that the state, over a five-year period, would buy the land.